Tales of Alronohare
by CatC10
Summary: It started with a story in the common room, but it escalated to much much more. Stars Ron. tell me if this should be updated, call this a test run. review please!
1. Default Chapter

Alronohare  
  
"Ron," came a voice from across the common room. Ron turned to see Ginny, ready for bed, in her lavender PJs, but not in bed.  
  
"What is it, Gin? I'm in the middle of a match with Harry." Ron replied, motioning to the chessboard between them.  
  
"I couldn't sleep, and then one of the girls wanted to hear a story. Well, I thought of a story, but you tell it better. Can you come up and tell it?" She asked.  
  
"WHAT? Gin, your 14! You don't need bedtime stories! And not that story for sure!"  
  
"What story?" Asked Harry. If Ron knew to which story she was referring with out her naming it, it must be a common classic.  
  
Ron wasn't listening to him though, and didn't answer. "Fine, I'll tell the story, you know I can't say no to you. But I'm not going upstairs and you're only hearing the first part! I can't tell the entire thing in a night!"  
  
Ginny dashed upstairs to her dorm and came back followed by several fourth years, some sleepy eyed, some not. They settled on the floor with pillows around Ron's chair and one darkly muttered to Ginny, "This better be worth it!" Ginny just smiled in anticipation.  
  
"Little whelps." Ron grunted with a side-ways glance at Harry.  
  
Getting on with the task he'd set out to do, Ron cleared his throat, and began to speak.  
  
"6000 years ago the world had not been born. Only heaven existed. But then the fallen angel Lucifer fell from his golden flight, taking one third of the angels in heaven with him. One of those fallen to become demons was named Alronohare. This is the first adventure of his many tales..."  
  
For hours Ron wove the tale. Harry, who had only been listening because he no longer had a chess-partner, was entranced in the odd telling. The Griffindors in the common room ceased their pre-owl studying and listened intently.  
  
Alronohare had been an angel unhappy in heaven. He had hated the fact that they could never claim the right to be, well, unhappy. Ten human years into the war he turned to support Lucifer.  
  
When Lucifer was defeated, he fell to hell with the rest of them and began a job as a torture giver, then did his job dutifully until the heaven wars began.  
The heaven wars were nasty things. Bloody, painful, and ruthless to the core. Alronohare fought and killed many angels during that time.  
  
The climax of the story was when the final clash of heaven and hell bent Alronohare against his oldest friend, a quirky angel by the name of quick wing. They fought viciously, slashing and cutting. Memories of their good times flying by their eyes, causing them to water in regret. With no feeling in their robotic movements they battled for hours. After an eternity, both took the last blows they could, Quick Wing collapsed dead. No more blood could he lose. Alronohare won, and screamed in rage.  
  
"To lose a friend I did not need is one thing! God! Lucifer! You shall nay fight any longer!" Ron spoke for Alronohare. "With his will, he broke between the fighting pair! Holding them both at sword-point, they were both at his mercy. 'Stop your useless fighting. I have just killed my most precious! The only one who was dear to me is dead at my hand! From this I have grown and learned! We fight over the newest realm of earth; we each wish to expand our territory! LEAVE IT BE! Let it's people decide their own lives! Let them be free when we are bound! Set this place to be a neutral ground all can walk upon! STOP THIS NEEDLESS WAR!' Alronohare cried. 'The last thing either side needs is more to fight over! Be happy with what we have!' and god said that Alronohare was wise.  
  
God and Lucifer came to an agreement that morning, held at sword- point to twin blades held by the fox demon: To keep earth as the middle ground between heaven and hell. Both races, angel and demon would be welcome on it's soil, and both would have one representative on it at all times. Such was the deal they made.  
  
Alronohare was happy to end the fighting. And gladly took the job of the demon representative. He settled into the role quickly, roaming the planet slowly, and watching as the human race began to rise. He thought his great purpose was over. Thought it was.  
  
But demons always have one purpose, and his was not complete. His purpose was not even close to being revealed. He would find this out, when one day he met a woman. He had no idea that this simple mortal, aged 26, would come to mean so much to himself, 1,458 years her senior. She would be the first to wrack his known world to its roots.  
  
So concludes the first tale of Alronohare, the demon guardian of the human race." Finished Ron. Harry suddenly realized his bone-dead tiredness. Looking at the clock, it was almost one in the morning.  
  
Amidst a crowd, Ron was helping herd everybody to bed. "Hey, Ron." Yawned Harry. "When's the next part?" Everyone stopped to listen. Ron noticed, and sighed.  
  
"This is what I get for telling it in the common room, Saturday night good for everyone?" murmurs flew through the crowd. "Good." Harry didn't think he'd ever wanted Saturday to come so fast. 


	2. the second tale

First, thanks to Leena, she reviewed. Now, Chapter 2.  
  
Somehow, Ron's ability at storytelling spread through the school. Malfoy had made as much of a show as possible by mock storytelling in the great hall in a loud, obnoxious voice. One of Ginny's friends passed him on her way out in the middle of his performance. "Ron's is of much better caliber, just to let you know." You can bet the Griffindors got a kick out of that.  
  
It was beginning to get out of hand when Ron walked into a room and some Griffindor or the other would be telling what he or she could remember of Alronohare's first tale. Others would begin jumping in about what they remembered, and soon fights were breaking out over little facts such as if Quick Wing had blond hair or black  
  
"I have never been happier to start telling this old story." Ron told Harry that Saturday.  
  
"Well, there is something I think you should know..." Harry said, looking guilty.  
  
"What is it, Harry?" Ron did not like that look.  
  
"Because of all the fights, Dumbledore said you have to tell the story outside of the common room. He said we could use the library instead, and that it would be nice if we allowed the other houses to attend..." Ron sighed as Harry said this he more than definitely did not like public speaking. In all his years, there was never enough time for him to perfect the art.  
  
"It's all right, Harry. If the Slytherins barge in and ruin the whole thing we'll just stop." Harry seemed put out, he for one enjoyed the fact that Ron had found a talent everyone could enjoy. "Don't worry." Ron reassured him again.  
  
It was an amazing turnout for the second tale. Griffindors came just to listen again, Hufflepuffs out of curiosity over this supposedly great story, Ravenclaws because they insisted that every legend had a basis in fact (and they wanted to find it!) Slytherins, on the other side of the line, were there to laugh in the suspenseful parts and talk during the rest of it.  
  
As Ron entered, quiet conversations ended and all eyes turned toward him in expectance. A small path appeared through the bodies lounging, uncomfortable library chairs having been transfigured into more comfortable beanbags and squashy armchairs. At the end of it, Ginny stood next to an armchair with a small table and a glass of water.  
  
"Well, don't I feel special." Ron said, lightening the tense air between the houses. With light steps, he crossed the path and sat in the chair. Shifting a little, he began where he'd left off.  
  
"The second tale of Alronohare is 700 years after the first takes place. Human civilization in only just beginning, and Alronohare sees them at first for what they started as: Sophisticated animals. He never counted on a woman showing him exactly what humanity was...Her name was Felitalda..."  
  
The life of the young woman flowed off his lips. Felitalda it seemed, met Alronohare when she was little, he'd saved her from drowning in a river near her village. She brought him things from time to time, when she could sneak them away from her brothers and mother. A bag of pretty shells she'd collected was her first gift to him.  
  
Alronohare had not understood why she offered these things to him, and as she grew older she tried to explain it to him. Gratitude on a demonic level was much lower than that of a human's. Felitalda became a friend, if you could call it that. Alronohare became tolerant of her, and eventually started caring for her. This was very important when Felitalda was arranged into marriage.  
  
Felitalda loved a man named Juno, but Juno was a poor man by trade, and could not afford the wedding price—his best livestock. Then Felitalda was sold to another man who could. Alronohare followed the young woman to her fiancé's home, and comforted her in the lavish, exotic garden. He did not much approve the match either.  
  
"No matter his riches," Ron spoke for the Demon, "To have you unhappy is not worth all the riches he has to offer.' After much debate with himself, he finally offered to her the only solution he could see. 'I'll kill him for you—on your wedding night. You can pay for your wedding with Juno and—' Felitalda stopped him there.  
  
'No, Alronohare, I'll not kill for my benefit. I'll not let you kill either. That is part of being human. Trying to find the most peaceful solution that will leave the most people happy. He has a family too, Alrono. They would miss him, and I cannot bear the thought of using his money earned in blood to lead a happy life. No, Alronohare. I will not let you go through with that plan.'  
  
The door was open now, and Alronohare understood a little more. Humans did not instinctively enjoy bloodshed like his own race had come to do.  
  
'Then what do you suppose we do?' He asked the girl. Both thought and mulled over the information they both knew too well.  
  
Felitalda was struck with inspiration! 'I disappear!' she cried! 'I disappear! Then I need not worry over marriage with some one I do not care for! Alronohare! Take me to a place far away with Juno, and let us restart! That is our answer!' She explained."  
  
Ron stood up in the middle of Felitalda's speech, and began to move, using his whole body to tell the rest of the story.  
  
Alronohare carried the young woman and her beloved far away into the neighboring kingdom, to start life over, peacefully. The man she was to marry was at a fret over the missing woman, but her old village all accepted it as a woman's wish, and did not question it any further. Alronohare stayed by the Felitalda's side. Right to the day she died. And he stayed still, to watch her sons and daughter, and her daughter's children. For the next 300 years he spent with them, he never stopped learning about humanity. He stayed with them and guarded them, protected them and watched over them. And he saw that humanity was good.  
  
"Alronohare swore that day, to protect for ever the young women descended of the beautiful, black haired maiden named Felitalda. And through this oath ends the second tale of Alronohare ends. Alronohare has learned humanity, and at the price of his free-walking days as a wanderer. Bound by oath to blood, he has begun the road to being human." Ron finished, water glass empty, crowd silent.  
  
The most noticeable thing was that the Slytherins were as enthralled with the story as the rest of the houses. They held their voices and sharp remarks, and, strangely, were some of the last to leave the library.  
  
Ron wondered about this, laying in his four-poster bed later that morning (" One' o'clock in the morning! Ron, you know how to tell a story!" yawned Neville,) why had the Slytherin stayed? From what he knew, they were always mean and spiteful. Maybe the moral of the story today had touched their humanity? No matter, these were things to be analyzed later, when the brain wasn't fuzzy for sleep, and hungry for dreams. 'Next Saturday shall be interesting.' He thought, drifting slowly into dreams. 


	3. one month later

3rd Chapter  
  
How many Saturdays would be spent in this place? The library was crawling with students settling down into armchairs or rugs; some were pulling in pillows from their dorms and curled up on the tables! Ron was once again in the large wooded room, about to tell another one of the demon's tales. He didn't understand what was so interesting about the life the demon led.  
  
"Harry, I've known these stories all my life. I grew up on them, so to speak. It's kind of, er, unnerving that so many people are so interested. These stories mean a lot to me, to see people gossip about them almost constantly the day after make me feel as though it's just someone's Saturday night television show! Dear lord...Harry! How did this get so big?" Ron asked the excited Potter.  
  
"Ron, the way you tell them...well, it's amazing. I for one, feel as though I've been sucked into another world. If you saw your face while telling the stories you'd love them too. That fight scene between Faska and Irlen, for example," Harry said, referring to two men from two weeks before, "Did you notice that you'd jumped up on the table when Faska was thrown against the cliff rock? You leapt off and onto another table as they jumped from pier to pier. You looked like a sword fighter, mate! And when Irlen fell to his death you jumped back to the floor and landed in a roll. A roll, mate! Next thing we knew, you had crawled to two inches in front of that first year, and you were telling the next part of the story when Alronohare was galloping atop nightshade to try and find the dueling pair, unaware that one was already standing victor over the other! It's no wonder as to why we listen, to us anyway."  
  
Ron stared at his friend. Did he do all that? Rushed pictures were all he really saw when he told the tales, old moving pictures in his minds eye were the only things he really paid much mind to. He squashed that thought down quickly and turned to the waiting crowd. Ginny had left out the chair this time, so little had he used it...but she held a glass of water in her hands still. Ron had promised them for a good story this time, being the last story he would be able to tell until after holiday break, as both he and Ginny were going to have the holidays at the burrow.  
  
Ron looked out to the filled room and sighed.  
  
"I really, really never expected such a big crowd to come out of this. Ever. As you all know, this is the 7th major tale of Alronohare, as I'm sure Ginny has told you a few tidbits of smaller stories I haven't the time to tell you. I'm also sure you'll be wanting something good to sustain you over the break. Well, I hope this tale is good for you, because it happens to be very important." Ron's face turned downward, eyes glinting behind longish red bangs. "Very important.  
  
"Alronohare had done many things since he'd come to earth. How couldn't he? He'd been there almost 3,000 years. Now, though, with his 7th tale, he'd do something he'd never imagined one of his kind could ever do. No, he could have never come to see what was about to take place."  
  
All of those sitting among the library's dusty shelves were swept away into the earlier world, slowly evolving as the tales progressed through time, but still so alien to their own modern ways. Alronohare was with Givalda, the 53rd generation after Felitalda, and the young girl was dragging him to market. She had dark hair herself, like Felitalda ages past, but her eyes couldn't have been more different from those of the woman he had admired so very long ago.  
  
Givalda chattered quickly about this and that to her guardian. She would fill the spaces he left during his long drawn silences with dated gossip over many things. This day was no different. She pulled him into the crowded pass ways that made up her favorite section of the business quarter. The area focused on dress-shops.  
  
She was by no means a rich girl, nor were her parents very wealthy. They refused Alronohare to share his hoards of time gathered goods with them out of pride, as had so many before. But Givalda enjoyed looking at the dresses anyway, window-shopping sometimes to an unbearable level. She said is was so she knew how when she'd be grown and married to a suitable rich man. Alronohare chucked at her inwardly, and told her that maybe he would just not let her marry..."  
  
Such was the way the story unfolded with Givalda. When she had grown, Alronohare became just as bad with her suitors as her father. No one could be good enough for her. She was too precious. But Alronohare stayed as close to manageable as he could given his strong feeling for the woman. He did not understand it!  
  
Why was he so...protective? Sure, he was sworn towards her safety, but it felt, different this time. It made no sense to the fox demon. It became hard to let her off alone.  
  
It was...not the same. He couldn't describe. He watched her out with many men, and grew increasingly agitated with their presence. One day, he calmed himself enough to go speak with his previous charge, Givalda's mother, Sicine.  
  
As he told her what he'd bottled up for years, her mouth squeezed into a pained line.  
  
"What is this, black eyes? What am I feeling? How do I control it? How do I make it go away? I have answered so many questions you've had over you life. Will you please tell me the answers to the ones I ask you now? I do not understand this! Please, little dear one, tell me why I sway so." Ron spoke in the disdained voice of Alronohare. "Slowly she rose, and Sicine spoke in a calm, reassuring voice to her daughter's demonic protector. 'Alronohare, what you describe to me cannot be. You told me yourself demons do not have the capacity to love, but what you describe to me can be no other. The only thing you can know for sure is that you care for her deeply, maybe more so than any other you've ever known to care.' Alronohare was shocked. He crouched like a statue for many minutes contemplating the statements Sicine had made.  
  
"It seemed so obvious, really. But he'd not seen it. He! Who could track, hunt, and fight better than any other on that physical plane, could not see past his own delusions of apathy. He'd fallen in love. With his charge, no less! In an instant, he was outside and running, away from Sicine, away from the knowledge he'd gained.  
  
"Away he sprinted trying to outrun the wind itself, it seemed. Appalled at himself for ever getting attached to someone in such a precarious way, he ran himself to exhaustion in futile attempt to forget. Now, secluded in a forest many leagues from the girl and her mother he allowed himself to collapse."  
  
When the story had finished, Alronohare had spent a month away from the girl and her mother. When he'd returned, she'd agreed to engagement with her current suitor. Alronohare had felt the tearing of his heart, bigger than any demon's was supposed to be, but held back choked words that his heart screamed at him to shout. When she'd died, it was six months after her husband during an inflaming epidemic, during childbirth. She only lived long enough to name the little girl, Marina.  
  
The little girl had her father's hair. Bright in hue, but it held a deep boldness that she'd received of her mother. Alronohare hated the child, for what it had come from. That man he'd never found ground with, that with only a few words had what he never could hope to attain. But the little girl, Marina, looked at him, and saw him for all he was. He could see her old ones eyes. Eyes that held great knowledge, despite being new from the womb. No, this girl he would bear no grudge on, for no matter how he'd despised her father for jealousy, he'd loved her mother. And that was all it took. He took her away in the night, to a different land. Away from the epidemic sweeping the areas around them.  
  
He raised her away from others, as if she were his daughter, and no one else's. And such was the lesson of humanity he'd learned. Do not bear grudges on those who've no control over their life's situation. You had no right to, because you couldn't control yours, either.  
  
Many sat in the library that night, far past when Ron had finished speaking. Tear tracks dried and many refused to move from their positions so deep were they in thought. The first one to move was a Slytherin. Blaze Zambini stood, and with all eyes on him, walked up to Ron, and bowed.  
  
"Damn bloody good story...mate." He said, quiet, but echoing in the still air.  
"Thank you." Ron answered. 


End file.
